You Know Something is Wrong…

[Originally entitled “Niggers, Crackers and Other Matters…” Published on Huffington Post( 2.29.16). It may be a new year but the story is the same.]

Wait. What did she say?

The audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats. No response. The air seemed thin and tight. She asked again.

“How many of you white folks would want to be black, given the way our black citizens are treated by this society?”

Still no response. No one uttered a word. She continued.

“That means you know something is wrong. If you would not want it for yourself, why would you want it for others?”**

Like deer stunned by headlights they sat — “outed” by their contribution to humanity’s racial brokenness. I heard that to heal properly, some bones have to be broken again and reset.

“…You know something is wrong…”

Lots of folks know something is wrong. Some simply don’t care. Some care, and don’t know what to do. Whether by intention, ignorance, or innocence, they live from the benefit of unearned privilege. Some choose not to see it. Some who see, move beyond the shame of ego pain, knowing they cannot satiate guilt through the cosmetics of charitable or social work. Neither can they mute guilt through ornamental friendships that feign diversity and political correctness. They know it is going to take more.

Poems for Niggers and Crackers is more. Published in May of 1965, a section of the introduction reads as follows:

“Poems for Niggers and Crackers… arose out of the uncontrollable hatred and despair of the black poet, Ibrahim Ibn Ismail, and the unwanted guilt and disgust of the white poet, James V. Hatch, and the attempts of each to purge himself of these negative emotions through joint poetic expression.”

Both American poets at a chance meeting in Egypt found common ground in their mutual disgust of America’s racial disparities and their mutual concern for one another.

“Neither the hatred, anger, and despair nor the guilt and disgust originated with the meeting. They were created long before by the simple and yet horrific circumstance of the poets having grown to manhood in a society in which each submitted to the emotions which seemed the best defense against total destruction.”

More than 50 years later, we are not unlike these poetic souls. We are still looking for ways to respond to horrific circumstances that ripple from a race card played against 400 years of free labor upon which historic unearned privilege flows. Just because it was free doesn’t mean there was no cost.

The South Carolina Massacre, Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, The Oscars — not all of these have equal importance. They are unified as outbreaks of an unhealed society. [That was in 2016. Now in 2020 we could add all the names of those executed while being Black in America and those names would outnumber the length of this article.]

“…You know something is wrong…”

Some folks think we should stop talking about it. But, it will take uncomfortable conversations, standing against institutional racism, refining anger into productive responses, showing mercy in the face of ignorance, accepting difference without tolerating bias, “outing”, and deciding to come together in spite of it all.

Uncomfortable conversations flourish in my friend Brian’s living room in Washington, DC. Brian is committed to more. Of the gathering, Brian writes:

“A small [diverse] group of friends gathered at our house a few days ago. Each attendee is a brilliant thinker and practitioner of Christian ministries and programs. Some are making a difference in the lives of inner-city youth in DC. Some are bringing justice to poor people in other nations. We came together to share our personal experiences growing up in this “racialized” society and share opinions about how the City of DC and the Church here can be a model of reconciliation.

Black participants started the conversation by stating that they are all tired and angry. Specifically angry at white privilege and at white church leaders who refuse to admit their privilege…And the damage they are doing to brothers and sisters in the Lord. Their ongoing sin of racism undermines their ability to tell others that God loves them because they do not love their own neighbors…”

Others added that they are angry that white Christians are not repenting of privilege and arrogance, and that white Christians are not doing what is needed to renounce the willful ongoing embrace of power over others whom God has created in His own image and created as equals.

One participant corrected us about the use of the term “racial reconciliation.” She noted, “To be reconciled means that the two parties were at one time united. But white people have never considered black people to be equals in any way. And white people are not about to give up their privilege and power. So there is nothing to be reconciled about.”

“…You know something is wrong…”

By the way, Brian is white. I am black. We are both Christians. We started an email exchange on this topic.

Brian shared: “So many of us white people are comfortable with our false gods of comfort, security, and position that we will sit down and shut up rather than step into the midst of the conversation, struggle, and fights…because that will cost us our position. We fear being “outed,” removed from our position of power. So we look the other way when we see other people being abused. I have been outing myself. To date, the worst thing that has happened is that old friends and some family have stopped talking to me.”

“You know something is wrong…you would not want it for yourself, why would you want it for others?”

Transformation must be consummated by the courage to press into private and public places where it will cost something.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” — Dr. King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

It seems somewhere along the way, we forgot we need each other and we are in this life together.

**opening excerpt from Jane Elliot presentation JaneElliot.com

A version of this article was originally published on Huffington Post 2.29.2016